Sign
Language:
What Sign
Language Is Not

1. Sign Language is neither universal nor
international. Each country's Deaf community develops its own Sign Language
despite some similarities of grammatical features that are shared by all
known-signed languages of the world. The way Deaf Americans may decide
to name the world about them is different from the way the Deaf South
Africans may do.

2. Different Sign Languages may have hand
forms, which, in some instances, may be culturally unacceptable in other
Sign Languages.

3. Some hand forms and combination of movements
may be the same in two Sign Languages but the meanings could be completely
different.

4. A signed exact spoken language that is,
making a sign for each word in a spoken language e.g. English, Zulu, Xhosa
is not Sign Languages. They are simple forms of communication that do
not follow the grammatical rules of either spoken or signed language.